At least once an hour, I searched up how to spawn him, because I would second-guess that I was in the right spot, even thought I KNEW I was in the right spot. Ha.
5 Likes
More like time space!
That one is fairly common in novels in my experience.
3 Likes
The Final Run
At this point, getting through this dungeon was a matter of using my favorite strategy: Press Q, take a nap.
This dungeon takes the design strategy of âmake everything so big that they wander into a corner with nothing in it and waste their resourcesâ to extremes. Most of the level is giant empty rooms connected by unnaturally long and wide hallways. Thereâs treasure on one floor that isnât Masamune. Who designed this freaking place? It seems like it was designed as a bunch of random large boxes designed to get you to waste your time, then they put some art on those boxes. Itâs all obviated by having a map, but it certainly wouldnât be interesting without a map, just tedious!
I was flabbergasted when I started playing music and it opened a door. I completely forgot that the princess gave us a (seemingly) pointless lute 20 hours ago. A door that is locked with a key that is impossible to not have when you first encounter the door is not very interesting. And yet, outside of Chaos, this was the most interesting part of the dungeon.
Seriously, if I havenât made this clear, I think this might be the worst dungeon in the game.
At least Chaos was interesting. I gave Masamune to Ninja, so that his attack power was almost as high as Warriorâs. I threw some hastes on both of them and used various buffs, and cast Flare so often I had to elixir to restore my spell uses. The new consumables make things pretty trivial, but I wouldnât have needed to use them if Chaos only had 2000 hp, so I guess it balances out.
Still, this was the first fight in the game since the first hour where I lost someone. Of course, it was Ninja. And then Ninja again. Ninja got Ariseâd twice, while no one else died at all. If not for flavor, it wouldâve been better to just have two warriors. Oh well, at least I get to say I had a ninja in my party.
The fight was by far the longest in the game, but he never did heal himself. This was the only fight in the game that played like a "Final Fantasy Fight"âą. Unfortunately, every FF fight will be 95% identical to this for the next half dozen entries at least. At least future entries have interesting gimmicks⊠sometimes.
Anyway, all done! Canât wait for the next one.
5 Likes
In the original version you have to remember that you have the lute in your inventory, and then think to select it. Fun and engaging gameplay.
I agree that the design of this dungeon is mediocre. It feels unfinished, with so many huge rooms that are just completely empty outside of some purely visual flourishes like thrones and statues.
I do enjoy the gauntlet of previous bosses and the âthemedâ levels. Yes, itâs a bit lazy since itâs just a bunch of asset reuse, but itâs expected for that era and I was happy to get the opportunity to fight these cool bosses again.
Itâs not a âFinal Fantasy Fightâ
if you donât have 3 minutes of summon animations though.
5 Likes
Yeah, Iâd concede the point if I had to do anything but hit the autobattle hotkey and do reviews until the fight was over.
Hey now, summons werent three minutes long until 7 and 8! FF4/5/6 summon animations are 2-4 seconds long at most!
4 Likes
Finished!
Game End
I had a really good time playing through this, really surprised with the story twist at the end. In a way, that feels more like a modern final fantasy story, rather than how the stories went in games 4-9. Pretty cool, even if it didnât make any sense⊠Which maybe that is why it felt more like a modern Final Fantasy story? lol.
The last dungeon design was pretty lame, but I see what they were trying to go for. A huge expansive last dungeon, but instead it just felt⊠Unfinished? Big for bigs sake? I am going to play through this again in a year or so, but just do the NES version and I have a feeling that a it will be a pain without the map.
Chaos was a pretty good fight in the PR. 20k health seemed like a good challenge, but didnât overstay its welcome. Sounds like quite a few folks had a character get one shotted multiple times, and I was the same way with my black mage. Died twice, but no one else did. I didnât know about the stacking buffs strategy, but just having haste on my Warrior and Monk was enough to have them deal the majority of the damage to the boss. I was level 49.
I really appreciate the games having an ending scrawl, and trying to wrap some things up for you. It felt like they really cared about the game and were trying to make something good. So many games from the era tried to epic final fights, but then are just over with very little actual description of what happens in the world because of what your character(s) did. I mean, they might have a sentence or show some characters celebrating, but I feel like this scrawl really tried to show you how the world ended up.
So, I donât know how many people are Dragon Quest fans, but I recently beat the first one (on SNES since it has kanji instead of being just hiragana) and am making my way through the remaster, and it is interesting to see how even in 1986 for DQ1 and 1987 for FF1 they had already set up their so much of their formulas.
Dragon Quest games in general are more straightforward, really tight mechanics with fewer bugs. The world building is usually pretty minimal and the characters seem like they should have personalities but⊠kinda donât? All of the spells in the game also have their own made up onomatopoeic names, so instead of âăăĄă€ăąâ it is âăźă©â.
In Final Fantasy there is so much world building, that often pieces canât even be fleshed out and there are a lot of things they just throw in that donât make sense⊠But I feel that is part of the fun. The combat isnât quite as tight as DQ, and the games are usually less balanced. There wasnât any character development in this game, but I know later games have a lot more. Many of the spells based on English words, and even the English translations kinda makes some kind of sense: Fire, Fira, Firaga for the three level of fire spells. Definitely went the more âcoolâ and âmodernâ westernized route for spell naming.
Really cool to see the roots of these two games, and how they continued to differentiate.
Anywho, excited to start the second one as it is now the last FF game I havenât beat of the pre XIII games.
6 Likes
Great wrapup, but I have a bone to pick with this line.
Youâre telling me that 4 (the one where you go to the moon and fly a whale spaceship) didnât have a last minute sci-fi twist? 5, which turns out to be about traveling between multiple dimensions to fight a tree containing all the worlds evil (who also permanently kills a party member!). 6, where the ENTIRE WORLD IS DESTROYED and the ridiculous side character becomes GOD. 7, where your main character literally thought he was someone else all along (among lots of other stuff). 8, where all of your characters actually already knew each other and were being manipulated by a sorceress from the future or god knows what happened in that game. 9, where your main character turns out to be a clone from another planet, from which all of your planetâs doom is being orchestrated.
Theyâve been shooting for the fences in every entry since the beginning, story-wise, and itâs cool to see that it isnât something they came upon later - it started right here in the first game.
3 Likes
Lol! I stand corrected! I guess every single game had varying levels of wackiness! And yeah, it often starts out pretty classic and then gets crazy at the end with some sci fi stuff.
I guess I was just think about how convoluted the stories for 12, 13, 15, and Crisis Core became. I mean, I literally couldnât understand how some of them fit together, but now that you mention it, even 4 and 9 which were way more âclassicâ got had their own sci fi flavor thrown in there.
Man, what fun ride this series is. And I guess that is why it has my heart over Dragon Quest even though it isnât as balanced and stuff⊠The journeys are just so unexpected and unique.
Now I am excited to see if there is a twist in the next one!
4 Likes
I too wanted to nickpick on that line but weâll get ample opportunity to discuss this when the time comes.
For those who havenât played those games do not read those spoilers, they reveal major plot points for future games.
4 Likes
Yep. No arguments there.
2 Likes
Oh, and speaking of spoilers. If anyone is thinking of getting Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER or anything. I havenât played it, but even the video on steam seemed to give away some of the plot.
If anyone has played it, they can verify whether it is a big deal or not, but the trailer straight up says that you are Garland, and shows you fighting the warrior of light.
4 Likes
Seems like a pretty big spoiler to be in a trailer!
I think that was spoiled for me in podcasts or reviews or some other coverage for the game.
4 Likes
I would argue that the cover art/banner on Steam also comes very close to spoiling thatâŠ
Itâs also the same âspoilerâ I edited from the ending video I posted.
Yeah I didnât even realize that it was meant to be a twist before I read your comment earlier, from the stuff I read about the game I assumed it would be established immediately at the start of the game.
The plot of that game seems to be a bit of a mess to be honest, but Iâm still very curious to play it some day.
5 Likes
Fixed that for you 
3 Likes
Just remembered this screenshot I took a couple weeks ago. The best use for Excalibur in a party without a Warrior.
8 Likes
Iâm super late for this club, but I have to say thank you to @simias and all of you that made me finish my first game in Japanese. I really liked the experience; it was hard, though. It was also the first FF that I finished, but I have started a lot of them.
Even if the story is simple, at least until the time trip part, the gameplay really caught me. Iâm really happy that I was able to play this game, even if I had to stop and search something in almost all phrases/sentences.
9 Likes
Congrats! Great job. Every game will be a little easier from here!
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Iâm happy that you made it through! I definitely remember looking up multiple words in every sentence when I started playing games in Japanese, itâs hard work but it pays off in the long run.
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I have finally beat the game.
The last boss absolutely annihilated me multiple times and I had to go look up strats on Reddit like some noob. I really donât like it when games donât balance their final boss (either way) with the up to the boss gameplay. Ah well.
Iâm happy to have finally played this game. My first FF was 7, and then I played them all though 12 (Iâm an unapologetic fan of 8), about 1/3 of 13, and 15. Iâve played a bit of the earlier games here and there, but havenât finished any of them, so Iâm looking forward to many more ffs with the club!
Thank you @simias for hosting, and looking forward to starting back up next year/week with everyone!
10 Likes
Ha! It seems that I have procrastinated enough to be the âLast One To Finishâ? ăăȘ
Except that I still donât have time to go play it⊠Ah!!! So will I never finish?!
I laughed so hard at this comment
6 Likes